we defend our own
by under a different pseudonym
Summary: Matt, Jessica, and Luke were all part of the same government experiment that gave them their powers. Years after they escaped the cleanup of the project that was supposed to kill them, they've gone their separate ways. When an old threat resurfaces, it's up to Foggy and Karen to reunite the three. Because the only chance they have, is together. Defenders AU
1. Chapter 1 - And So It Begins (Again)

Chapter 1 - And So It Begins (Again)

It was a rainy day in New York City. The drops splattered the roof of the cab as it pulled up in front of the old brownstone with "Nelson and Murdock, Attorneys at Law" emblazoned on a placard next to the door. Foggy paid the driver while Karen got out and opened her umbrella, walking around the car to help Matt out. Together, the three entered the building and walked up to their office.

"Another successful case for Nelson and Murdock!"

"Yeah, and maybe we'll even get paid this time." Matt laughed.

Matt shrugged off his coat and Karen took it and hung it next to the door. He made his way across the familiar layout to the little room he called his office, eschewing his walking stick.

"So what do you want to do for the rest of the morning?" Foggy asked his partner. "We don't have another client coming in until well after noon."

"Well we could always–" Matt stopped mid-sentence.

"Always what?" Foggy asked.

But Matt didn't reply. He had gotten up, and was staring intently in the direction of the window, a serious look on his face.

"Something's wrong," He muttered.

Before Foggy or Karen had a chance to ask him what he was talking about, the window burst open, and four men in military-grade black-ops gear crashed into the office. Foggy screamed and Karen ran for cover, but Matt stood his ground. One of the men held out a taser and shot it at Matt, who deftly dodged it, and turned back towards his attackers. Another one came at him with a punch, but he sideswiped it and used the momentum to pull the man close and knee him in the gut.

Foggy and Karen watched in awe and bewilderment as their very mild-mannered, very _blind_ friend took on these military men like he was in a Kung-Fu action movie.

Matt spun around just as the other two came at him, and launched himself into a backflip, kicking one into the other. The first man had reset his taser and made to aim for Matt again. Before he could pull the trigger, Matt got in close and threw a punch, knocking him out and grabbing the taser in one swift motion.

Once he had made sure that all of the attackers were knocked out, Matt turned back toward the broken window.

"What. Was. THAT?!" Foggy yelled from beyond the desk.

"Shhhhhh!" Matt hissed. He turned towards his friends. "There're more coming. We have to get out of here. Now."

"WHAT is going on?!"

"I'm really sorry, Foggy, I don't have time to explain. They're after me, and they want me alive. Listen, I'm going to run and lead them away from you so you have a chance to escape. Go find Jessica Jones, Alias Investigations. Tell her Matty sent you, she'll know what to do."

He faced back towards the window, and then back at where they stood. "I am so, so sorry."

Before either could ask any more questions, Matt turned and climbed out the broken window and leaped onto the fire escape.

Foggy and Karen shared a worried look as they watched their friend lead off more men in black, running across the rooftops of Manhattan through the pouring rain.


	2. Chapter 2 - Gather 'Round Kiddos

Chapter 2 - Gather 'Round Kiddos, It's Story Time

It was raining harder now as the beleaguered pair made their way through the streets, barely sheltered by their coats. They had ran in the opposite direction that Matt had lead their mysterious attackers, and had only slowed to a jog when they though the coast was clear, still anxious to get away from prying eyes and the rain. Karen looked up "Alias Investigations" and murmured the address out loud as Foggy mentally mapped their way across town.

Finally, Foggy and Karen came to the address that was supposed to house Jessica Jones. The apartment was shoddy, with flickering fluorescent lighting and peeling drywall. A suspicious thump, followed by yelling came from the floor above. At the end of the hall, there was a door that was more cardboard than door with a sign taped on the front. ALIAS INVESTIGATIONS in big block letters extinguished any hope that this might be the wrong place.

Foggy walked up and tentatively knocked on the door.

After a few seconds, it opened on a woman. She was short, with dark hair and intense eyes, clad in dark jeans, combat boots and a leather jacket.

"Hey! Hey, are you Jessica Jones?"

"Yeah, I am. Did you want to hire me for something?" She asked, terse and direct.

"Well, um, I'm Foggy Nelson, this is Karen Page, and we were sent to find you by Matthew Murdock." Foggy explained.

Jessica leveled an unimpressed stare at the two, her eyebrows quirked and face scrunched up in a mix of confusion and impatience. "Who?"

"He said to say 'Matty' sent us?" Karen amended. Jessica's face morphed first into one of realization and then to weariness.

"Matty, huh?" Jessica laughed dryly. She walked back into the room, inviting them in, and leaned against the desk in the center of the room. "Yay tall, brown hair, blind as a motherfucker?" Foggy and Karen nodded dumbly. "I haven't heard from him in years. We'd agreed to limit contact, especially after what happened to– nevermind. Why'd he send you to me?"

"He's– He's in trouble. These goons came out of nowhere and attacked him. He started to fight back– I didn't even know he _could_ fight– and he tried to lead them off, but before he did he told us to find you, told us you would know what's going on, that you could help him," Foggy said.

A strange look crossed the detective's face.

"Shit," Jessica hissed. "Shit shit shit shit _shit_." She got up and stalked towards the door. She looked around out into the hallway, and, satisfied that there was no one there, shut the door and turned around.

"Yeah, I know Matt. He and I go way back. We cut off contact for a reason. If he wants my help, he's either truly desperate, or it's a specific brand of asshole that he's up against. Very specific. He said _I_ would know what's going on? There's no other reason he would ever send you to me, or Luke."

"Who's Luke?" Karen asked.

"The third of the three musketeers. If this is headed where I think it's headed, you'll probably meet him. Maybe. If he's even out."

"Matt was a little preoccupied at the time. He barely told us how to get to you."

"Wait, wait, start at the beginning," Foggy said. "What's going on?"

Jessica looked him up and down. She was wary, he could tell. Years of dealing with people on the bench had given him some expertise in reading people, and from the looks of it, Jessica Jones was not about to divulge whatever story she had to tell. And yet, there was something there, just below the surface. She wanted to tell them, trust them. Maybe all he had to do was push.

"Please tell us, we want to help. Matt's our friend, and he's in danger. From the sound of it, you are too."

Jessica sighed. "This isn't just Matt's story, okay? It's mine too. I've never told anybody half of this, so I'm going to need a good reason to start now. Besides, I tell you this, and you're in it. No going back. "

"Please," Karen said. "We want to help our friend. And you too- anyways we've sort of built a reputation for sticking our noses where they don't belong. If this is going to cause shit for us, we can handle it. Trust us."

Jessica was silent for a moment.

"Well, I'm pretty sure I can trust you when you say that Matt sent you. No one else would have known I used to call him 'Matty'. And I guess you're already in it, whether I tell you or not."

She let out a long sigh and eyed a half empty bottle of rum on her desk. She apparently thought better of it, and stood up straight.

"Okay, I'll tell you," Jessica said, "But you're going to want to take a seat." She motioned to the old futon in the corner. Karen and Foggy sat down. She pulled up a chair from by her desk, and started talking.

"I guess you could say we, that is, Matty, Luke, and I, we grew up together. That's putting it nicely. I don't know how much you already know, not a lot, judging by your reactions, but if he sent you here, that must mean he's desperate enough for me to fill you in on the gritty details. I don't want to, but here it goes.

"We were, well- we were government lab rats, basically. They wanted to recreate the super soldier serum from World War II, or maybe improve it, I don't know. I haven't seen Captain America do half the shit this serum could do. They hadn't perfected it, not by a long shot, but they had some of the components working.

"None of us got the finished cocktail, but we each got a single part of it. Wanted so see if it did what it was supposed to, and, hey, who'd miss a couple of orphan kids dropping out of the system? They picked us off of the streets, or out of orphanages, or, hey, straight out of a hospital bed after _her entire family died in a car crash_." Both Karen and Foggy winced at that little detail.

"We each got a different part of what was eventually going to be the 'new wave of the US Military.' Matt, he may be blind, but he's got some sort of super sense. He can hear a heartbeat from five blocks away and through several feet of solid concrete, smell fear or some shit, and that isn't even the half of it. Sound, smell, touch, it's all way beyond what a human should be capable of. Luke's literally bulletproof. Several rounds of a semiautomatic to the chest, and he doesn't get a scratch. It takes a lot of force to even hurt him. As for me,"

Jessica stood up and looked around the meagerly furnished room. Her eyes settled on the threadbare futon they were sitting on, and with a few purposeful stride and one swift motion, hefted it over her head with the two of them still on it.

Foggy let out a started yelp, and Karen gripped the sidearm until her knuckles turned white.

"Super strength. I max out at around four and a half tons."

"Holy shit," Karen whispered.

"Did you just say _tons_?"

Jessica lowered the couch carefully, placing it back on the floor with a thunk. Foggy looked shaken and Karen hadn't let go of the sidearm. But now they looked at Jessica with shock and awe on their faces. It was one thing to hear about all this superpower stuff, but to have such clear evidence made it all feel real.

"There were others, too. Not many though, maybe around twenty of us. There was this one kid, I think he got x-ray vision. There was a girl who had pre-sense, could anticipate any move you were about to make before you even thought of making it. We were given these powers and then trained and tested over and over to see how well the serum worked, what the limits were. They taught us to fight and use our abilities to their fullest potential…

 _Jessica walked into the old gymnasium, the sounds of the others sparring echoing off the concrete walls. Some faced each other, others worked alone on punching bags or obstacle courses. Luke was already there, getting wailed on by another kid. Not that it mattered; Luke just stood his ground, unfazed and unharmed. Matt was over on the obstacle course, flipping over barriers and punching targets. All the others were dressed in the plain gray sweatpants and simple black tank tops that made up their usual outfits. The researchers stood off to the side, noting down their observations on clipboards._

 _She wondered who she'd be sparring today. Probably Jo again. They liked paring her up with an opponent that could dodge her moves and make her think. She went to the corner and started to wrap her hands in tape and tie up her hair when one of the researchers came up to her and took her to the weightlifting area. There, she found several slabs of rough concrete, several square feet each with metal scaffolding still sticking out at odd angles. Each had to be over five hundred pounds. She was told to carry all of them across the training compound. And when she was done, to move them back._ To test the endurance of her strength, _they told her._

 _So she did as she was told. When she had moved the blocks and moved them again, they made her do it again. She didn't stop, not when her muscles started screaming, not when she felt the blood drip down onto her feet, not when she stumbled and almost gave in to exhaustion. If she stopped, she's be punished. They'd all be punished. One person's mistake was everyone's mistake._

 _Finally, they decided they'd had enough. After the third time she tripped and fell and couldn't lift the block again, the researcher figured her endurance had reached its limit for the day. They made a note on their clipboard and sent her to go get cleaned up and report for dinner._

 _She sat in the shower, letting the hot water run over her back. She didn't move, too tired to put any effort into cleaning up. After the water started to turn cold, she got up and turned the shower off. She dried herself with a towel and put on her old clothes. That's when she noticed the fresh bloodstains on her pants. The cuts on her hands were still bleeding, red and raw._

 _The bunks were empty now, everyone would be at dinner. So she made her way to the one she called her own and sat. She stared down at the angry red scrapes, and, not for the first time since being brought here, felt her eyes well up with tears._ Stupid scientists, _she thought._ Stupid tests, stupid powers. Why can't I be with my parents? Why did they have to die? Why didn't I? Why did I have to be brought here? Stupid, stupid, stupid!

 _She was too caught up in her own thoughts that she didn't notice that someone had entered the room. She startled when they sat down on the bed next to her._

 _"You're bleeding." Matt said, not a question. He stared straight ahead, but she knew he didn't have to be facing her to know._

 _"Thanks, Sherlock. I hadn't noticed." Jessica snipped back, her voice wavering as she tried to hide her sniffling._

 _"You're crying, too"_

 _"Do you have a point here?"_

 _"I guess not," he said. But instead of leaving, he grabbed her hands and slowly started to wrap them with some gauze he pulled out from under the pillow on his bed next to hers. He bandaged her hands deftly, tight but careful not to aggravate her raw wounds._

 _"You're good at this. When'd they teach you how to dress wounds?" She said._

 _"They didn't. My dad, he used to be a boxer. I'd patch him up whenever he came home after a loss." Jessica stared at him. None of the other kids ever divulged personal information. All anyone knew about anyone else was that they were all in the same boat, orphans with no one to miss them._

 _"Oh," she said quietly. "Do you miss him?"_

 _"Yeah. I miss him. It was just the two of us, against the world, you know? Even after the accident that made me blind. He always wanted me to amount to something, go to college, be successful. He was a good dad," Matt said. "What about you?"_

 _Jessica sniffled. "We were normal, I guess. Normal family with a normal house and normal problems. I had a mom and a dad and an annoying little brother. You kinda remind me of him," she gave him a little shove with her shoulder. "I miss them every day."_

 _The two of them sat in silence for a while. Matt had finished bandaging her hands. Jessica had stopped crying, and the two were at ease around each other._

 _Jessica's stomach broke the silence. She looked up at him, and after a moment they both burst into laughter, probably for the first time in a while._

 _"You haven't eaten," Matt said._

 _"Do you always state the obvious?" Jessica quipped._

 _"I mean, we should get some food."_

 _"The kitchen's closed by now."_

 _"So?"_

 _"So, dummy, we can't get food."_

 _"Says who? We'll sneak in. You can't go to sleep without food. And I'm hungry too."_

 _"Didn't you already have dinner with the others?"_

 _"I'm a growing boy!"_

 _Jessica laughed. "You can tell when someone might catch us with your ninja-senses, right? Let's go."_

"We were just stage one. Stage two was mixing them together to see if they had any – _undesirable_ – interactions. But it never got that far. Program was shut down, and we were going to be shut down with it. We escaped, the three of us, by sheer dumb luck, probably, and made a run for home. Wherever that was anymore. We stuck together for a few months, hitchhiking and living on the streets as we made our back to the city from the compound upstate. Once we got here, though, we went our separate ways, thought it was too dangerous to stay in close contact. One super powered teen was attention grabbing enough, three together was just asking for us to get caught. We were supposed to split up. Yet here we are, all in New York. Probably shouldn't have stayed here, hell, we probably shouldn't have stayed in the same damn country, but home's home I guess. We couldn't even cut each other out completely. Hard to let go when you go through something like that with people. Although we haven't been in contact in a while. Last I heard, Luke was arrested for a crime he didn't commit and Matty had just decided to try for law school."

Jessica's silence let them know that she was finished talking for now.

"Shit," Foggy said, "I'll those years I've known Matt, and I had no idea."

"Yeah, I'm sure he doesn't talk about it much. 'Hey, I was a government lab rat with super powers' isn't really a conversation you just bring up."

"Fair point, but I still feel like I should have known something this big about my best friend."

"Well, you can take that up with him after we deal with these government goons that came after you."

"How do you know they were government?" Karen asked.

"Because Matt sent you to me," Jessica replied. "He wouldn't get me involved if it was something that didn't already involve me. And I trust his judgement. If he thinks whoever attacked you has something to do with the Program, I'm inclined to believe him. Besides, all the records of this project were completely destroyed. The military couldn't have anyone finding out they were experimenting on children. The only people who would know anything about the project would have to have been directly involved, and would know who we are to target us. They may not be government now, but, whoever they are, they were once."

Foggy and Karen were quiet for a little while, mulling over what exactly they were up against.

"So what's the plan?" Karen finally ventured.

Jessica smiled. It was a grim sort of smile, and Foggy thought she might actually be warming up to them.

"Simple. We get them before they get us.

"They, whoever _they_ are, might already have Matt. I doubt it, but we don't really know what their capable of. Either way, we can't get to him right now. Our best bet is to try and find Luke. Last place I heard from him was Harlem, so might as well start there. Once we find him, we'll be better equipped to track down their base of operations. Normally, I'd say cut our losses and run where they can't find us, but this isn't going to stop. If they were able to attack Matt, they know who we are, and there's no running. So we take the fight to them."


End file.
